Lots More Books to Read
I've acquired some books over the last month in various ways, and now I have added them to the reading queue, which at its current swollen proportions will take me over a year to get through. Here's what I've added. As mentioned in
this post, I snagged a copy of
The Glory of Their Times, an oral history of the early years of baseball by
Lawrence Ritter. I can't believe that spring training is only a couple of weeks away. I also got some books from my mom, who is great about sending books my way. She passed along two books by
Virginia Woolf (whose work I have never read),
To the Lighthouse as well as
a collection of her shorter fiction. She also got me the first play to be added to my young reading queue,
Jumpers by
Tom Stoppard. I rarely read any drama though I should probably read more. In fact, I don't think I've read a play since college... another Stoppard play,
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead. Going in a completely different direction, I've added a graphic novel that my friend Chris, insisting that I would enjoy it, kindly lent to me:
I Never Liked You by
Chester Brown. I also secured a copy of
Absolutely American, a book that
David Lipsky wrote after spending four years following one cadet class through West Point. And finally I acquired a couple of advance copies of some books that'll be out this spring. The first is
You Remind Me of Me, a new novel by up and comer
Dan Chaon. The other is
Rick Atkinson's book about being embedded with the 101st Airborne in Iraq.
Check out the post where I broke the news on this book back in October. Atkinson won the
Pulitzer last year for the first book in his "Liberation Trilogy,"
An Army at Dawn (also on the reading queue!)
Insider Reviews
Ever since Amazon instituted the customer review feature there have been a fair amount of complaints from authors and publishers that one vengeful reader's review can kill their sales. Other improprieties have also been alleged, like authors anonymously reviewing their own books glowingly while disparaging the books of rivals and enemies. A recent glitch at Amazon's Canadian site lifted the veil of anonymity from the process.
This New York Times article describes the fallout. The highlights:
John Rechy giving glowing reviews to his own novel,
The Life and Adventures of Lyle Clemens and
Dave Eggers writing a positive review of his friend
Heidi Julavits' novel,
The Effect of Living Backwards.
- C. Max Magee @ 1:42 AM ~
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